


if destiny's kind

by nutellamuffin



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: (mostly), Angst, Drabble, Not A Fix-It, Pining, Post-Prince Caspian, Sad Ending, and this song rlly went for them, i just have a lot of feelings about them, ignoring canon (again)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26150122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutellamuffin/pseuds/nutellamuffin
Summary: the way edmund stares at him as he stands beside the tree trunk is something that caspian is certain he’ll never shake.
Relationships: Caspian/Edmund Pevensie
Comments: 1
Kudos: 60





	if destiny's kind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MostlyFandomTrash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyFandomTrash/gifts).



> song lyrics are from "for reasons unknown" by the killers.

_ ( i pack my case ) _

_ ( i check my face ) _

_ ( i look a little bit older ) _

_ ( i look a little bit colder ) _

the way edmund stares at him as he stands beside the tree trunk is something that caspian is certain he’ll never shake. they are boys. they are not men, neither of them; edmund was, once, but that time has come and gone, and he isn’t sure what he is anymore. 

perhaps he is still a man, in some ways; in the way his mind works, in the way he still thinks like he’s winning a war; but he has boy’s limbs, that stretch in ways he hasn’t felt in years, that sometimes make him catch himself off guard with how they shake, the voices of lives lost trapped inside his bones.

and caspian, narnia needs him to be a man. it does not matter whether he wants it or not; it does not matter that he is barely eighteen, it does not matter that he fled from his bed much less than a year ago, it does not matter that he had a crown  _ thrust _ upon his head- for it was not placed, gently, as he had imagined it would have been. it weighs his head to the floor and he is a  _ king, _ and kings are not boys. kings are men.

nights ago, caspian asked him of his throne, what it once was. in the midst of war, edmund had told him,  _ keep smiling, _ and caspian wanted to know where that instinct came from. the two boys had not slept that night, and edmund had spun tales of a life that caspian only read about, and edmund had lived a thousand lifetimes ago but still doubted even existed at all. and caspian, with the bags under his eyes that were outshone by a smile, was just as anxious as he would’ve been with twelve hours of rest.

he prefers spending his nights the way they did, if he’s being honest.

_ ( i caught my stride ) _

_ ( i flew and flied ) _

_ ( i know if destiny’s kind ) _

_ ( i’ve got the rest on my mind ) _

* * *

_ ( well, my heart ) _

_ ( it don’t beat ) _

_ ( it don’t beat the way it used to ) _

_ ( and my eyes ) _

_ ( they don’t see you no more ) _

caspian is a man and he doubts it. with every fibre of his being- that wishes for simpler days, days of daisy crowns and story books and having your idols being only so- he feels he is not. he does not feel like a million lifetimes could prepare him for the throne, or maybe just one could; one where he could grow up watching his father, one where he would truly have a soul of a man before this heavy crown chokes him, but he does not. 

he has the soul of a six year old boy watching his nurse battle with her words, he has the soul of a parentless ten year old running through the halls and wanting to get  _ out _ but not knowing how, he has the soul of an eighteen year old who stuck his sword in the ground and hated his tears as they rolled down his cheeks for a man who did not deserve them.

and when he must go to sea, he does not look back; he leaves the crown where it belongs, and he does not miss the cold throne and what it stands for. he steps into the sunlight on the deck of the  _ dawn treader _ and he breathes in, for what feels like the first time in fifteen years. the salt spray on his face wakes him up from the nightmare he has lived, and he smiles.

_ ( and my lips ) _

_ ( they don’t kiss ) _

_ ( they don’t kiss the way they used to ) _

_ ( and my eyes don’t recognize you no more ) _

* * *

_ ( it was an open chair ) _

_ ( we sat down in the open chair ) _

_ ( i said, if destiny’s kind ) _

_ ( i’ve got the rest on my mind ) _

he is a story, standing soaking on the deck, but he is a story with a smile on his face, and caspian supposes that’s all that matters. and the seafarer’s smile, that doesn’t seem to have faded in any way that counts while on this boat, widens at the thought.

and when their steel meets, and the crew cheers, and caspian can take comfort in the fact that nothing has changed even with a sword to edmund’s throat, he knows that they are both home. edmund, in narnia, and caspian, at sea. and both of them, with the other.

it feels like the stars shine for them, and in a way, caspian can guess that they do. (or he can hope, and when the seafarer didn’t know something for sure, that was what he always did.) and he tells edmund his own stories, to try to give back to him what the just gave him so many years ago and yet none at all; and edmund merely glances over to him, and says,  _ maybe you will. _

and maybe he does, in sixty years. or maybe thirty, or maybe ten, or maybe none at all, and caspian has his gut twisted up with the strongest sense of  _ not knowing _ in his life; not when their lips meet, not when they make empty promises, not when they take them back. he does not know a single thing, and edmund tries to teach him, but you cannot teach someone to predict the future when you cannot do it yourself.

or perhaps they did. edmund is staring at the swirling water in front of him, and for a moment, he thinks he is going to see caspian’s father without him. (he thinks of the seafarer’s tears, and how he blinked them away. he supposes that is growth, or perhaps that is something worse.) and that moment passes as quickly as it came, because he knows what’s going to happen, and all he can do is hold caspian as tight as he can in a hug that he wishes would last another thousand years.

they predicted this, in seemingly endless nights under the stars. and they wonder, if they didn’t, would it still have happened?

_ ( and my heart ) _

_ ( it don’t beat the way it used to ) _

_ ( and my eyes ) _

_ ( they don’t see you no more ) _

_ ( and my lips ) _

_ ( they don’t kiss the way they used to ) _

_ ( and my eyes don’t recognize you at all ) _

* * *

_ ( for reasons unknown ) _

_ ( i said, my heart don’t beat the way it used to ) _

the ship disappears in the painting and edmund feels as though any world except that one is not a home to him any longer. in this painfully white room,  _ with that painfully still painting _ , and the painfully vivid memory of nights under the stars. he has lost one lifetime to that world, and now he feels as though he has lost another; although the second one isn’t his to lose, he has lost it all the same.

and caspian, he smiles at his wedding. he does, for he feels in some way that his father’s eyes are on his back, and he knows that story books don’t mean half as much to his people as they do to him.

not when the story books come to life, not when caspian clashes swords with one and another says,  _ neither are you. _ when said other feels more like another half of himself, when the mere sight of stars reminds him of a story that wasn’t just a story at all.

caspian smiles at his wedding, because he is the king of a land that is long past story books, and when he has blinked back tears twice in his life he will do it a third time. he will do it a third time, and a fourth, because how is he supposed to explain to anyone that offers their ears to him how he feels, when he cannot to do it to himself?

the way edmund stared at him as he stood beside the tree trunk is something that caspian has never forgotten. and some nights, when the stars are too loud, he wishes he did. he wishes to  _ forget, _ to wipe every memory of growing up too fast and meeting story books and  _ loving them, _ he wishes to forget everything that turned him from a boy to a man.

caspian is not a boy, he is a man. and somewhere across the worlds, edmund is still the former, but he does not have the words to explain how that isn’t entirely true, either.

_ ( for reasons unknown ) _

  
  



End file.
